Tignon

In 1786, the governor of New Orleans, Louisiana issues the Tignon Laws that “prohibited Creole women of color from displaying ‘excessive attention to dress’ in the streets of New Orleans”. Black women both enslaved and free had to wear a scarf or cloth over their hair to indicate belonging to the slave class.

The law was meant to humiliate and remind Black women of their place in society. Black women , however, embraced the law and used it another way to resist the colonial power by wrapping their hair with elaborate fabrics, jewels and ribbons.

This piece commemorates the ingenuity and resilience of Black women to continually make lemonade from the lemons they were given.